Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich was founded in 1900 as a gymnastic clubs and later became famous for its football section. The basketball section was founded in 1946 after one former football player started the team after retiring from his former sport.

has a long basketball tradition. Besides its most successful years in the 1950s and 1960s (German Championships in 1954, 1955, and German Cup in 1968), the club enjoyed remarkable popularity in 1956, when it even drew 40,000 fans to an open-air test game against Lancia Bolzano, once a top basketball club from Italy. Later, in 1966, the club was a founding member of the Basketball Bundesliga.

Bayern was one of the founding members of the Basketball Bundesliga in 1966.

In the following years, the club slowly, but surely, faded into obscurity, and in 1974, was even relegated to the German 2nd Division. For a long time after that, the club never completely recovered, and only had a few successful years (Bayern moved up to the Basketball Bundesliga in 1987, and stayed there until 1989).

In 2008, Bayern Munich, led by then-president Uli Hoeneß and then vice-president Bernd Rauch, announced its plans to return the club to its former glory, and return to the top level Basketball Bundesliga.^[] Two years later, in 2010, Bayern Munich's club members voted in favor of a one-time financial injection in the team, with the aim of bringing it back to the first division. Following its new financial funding, the team announced national team head coach Dirk Bauermann. In 2011, the team became fully professional.

Success in the domestic area followed quickly, as in the 2012–13 season the club reached the BBL semifinals, where it lost 3–2 against the reigning champions Brose Baskets.

Thanks to a wild card, Bayern Munich played in the EuroLeague in the 2013–14 season. This was its first appearance in the top European championship, and it reached the Top 16 stage in its debut.

On 18 June 2014, Bayern won its third national title when it beat Alba Berlin 3–1 in the Finals. It was the first title for the team in 59 years, its last having been in 1955. The star player of the team was Malcolm Delaney, who won both the MVP and Finals MVP awards.

In the 2014–15 season, Bayern failed to win a title. In the BBL Finals they were defeated by Brose Baskets, 3–2. The team had to wait until 2018 for its next championship, as they beat Alba Berlin 3–2 in the Finals that year. By winning the BBL, Bayern also qualified for the following EuroLeague season.

In the following years, Bayern Munich became a power house in the BBL, as well as a regular in the EuroLeague.